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The Sabaya
Yaniv Voller
August 2, 2024

This week marks a decade since one of the greatest crimes of the 21st century: the Yazidi genocide and the sexual enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and girls by the Islamic State terrorist organization. A direct line connects this onslaught on Yazidi women and the Oct. 7 attack against Israel. In both events, the captors of Yazidi and Israeli women were documented referring to their captives as sabaya, an Arabic term that dates back to medieval times to describe the taking of occupied populations as spoils of war or, in a more contemporary context, slavery, including sexual slavery. READ MORE